Abstract
The relationship between corporate social responsibility (CRS) and diversity management (DM) features heavily in current debates. Analysis has sought either to establish the commonalities and differences between DM and CSR or to discuss, for example, their interconnection as regards processes of sensemaking. Although it has been repeatedly stressed that no uniform definition exists both in relation to DM and to CSR and that, in fact, from an empirical perspective, diverse notions of DM and CSR prevail, these conceptual differences with regard to strategic direction and tactics of implementation have been for the most part disregarded. In the following text, this very diversity of notions will be explored from the perspective of reflexive diversity research, and I wish thus to inquire into the specific connections between DM and CSR. In this regard, I distinguish, following Michel de Certeau, between superordinated strategies and operative tactics and presume, in the same way as Michel Foucault, that they possess a dispositive polyvalence, in other words, that one and the same phenomenon can be an element of different strategies or tactics. The aim of this analysis is to contribute to a (more) differentiated definition of the relationship between CRS and DM.
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Notes
- 1.
For an overview of human rights critiques in relation to CSR, see Saage-Maaß (2014).
- 2.
The distinct French concept appareil and dispositif has been frequently rendered the same way as ‘apparatus’. However, I agree with Jeffrey Bussolini (2010: 93) who states that Foucault makes a clear distinction between these two concepts. According to this ‘apparatus’ ‘seems to be a smaller subset of dispositive, and one that is more specifically state-centered and instrumental’.
- 3.
A key notion in the methodological considerations of Weber is the formation of ideal-type concepts (idealtypische Begriffsbildung). With the ideal type, Weber wishes to simultaneously demarcate two boundaries, delimiting his approach, first, from the description of individual cases offered by historical research and, second, from the nomothetic statements made by the natural sciences. Weber (1904: 90 (in the English translation)) explains the logical structure of the ideal-type concept as follows: ‘An ideal type is formed by the one-sided accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those one-sidedly emphasized viewpoints into a unified analytical construct (Gedankenbild). In its conceptual purity, this mental construct (Gedankenbild) cannot be found empirically anywhere in reality. It is a utopia. Historical research faces the task of determining in each individual case, the extent to which this ideal-construct approximates to or diverges from reality…’.
- 4.
An early attempt to develop a theoretical classification for CSR models was provided by Archie B. Carroll (1991). Subsequently, different dimensions (e.g. Quazi and O’Brien 2000) and core areas (e.g. Schwartz and Carroll 2003) of CSR have been distinguished. This has been followed by the categorisation developed by Elisabet Garriga and Domènec Melé (2004), inspired by the work of Talcott Parsons, in which they distinguish between instrumental, political, integrative and ethical theories of CSR.
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Bührmann, A. (2017). (Un)clear Relationships?. In: Hansen, K., Seierstad, C. (eds) Corporate Social Responsibility and Diversity Management. CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43564-0_2
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